Sammy Hagar recalled a song he’d written that Alex Van Halen dismissed – only for the drummer to regret it soon enough when he heard the final version.
The singer had offered the track to Van Halen as they worked on the record that would become 1988’s OU812; but the drummer wasn’t interested, dismissing it out of hand. That was until he heard the finished version of “Eagles Fly” on Hagar’s 1987 solo album I Never Said Goodbye.
“I’m at the studio,” Hagar said in a recent social media video. “I’m playing it for Ed, and Alex is standing in the background, and I’m… on guitar, acoustic. And Alex goes, ‘Sounds like John Denver!’
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He continued: “I’ll never forget it! I’m going, ‘Yeah – what’s wrong with that? John’s a bad motherfucker! Shut your mouth when I’m talking about John! … [I]t was just such a funny reaction.”
With Van Halen, the band, clearly uninterested in the song, Hagar completed it for his own LP, with Eddie playing guitar and bass and supplying backing vocals.
When Alex Van Halen Heard the Finished Version of Sammy Hagar’s Eagles Fly’
“Alex heard it on the record,” Hagar said, “and he goes, ‘Hey, man, you should have saved that for Van Halen!’ I said, ‘Dude, don’t you remember what you said about that song?’”
It became a staple of Van Halen’s live set during the Hagar era. “It was just really ironic that it [became] one of his favorite songs,” the singer reflected. “[It was] one of Eddie’s favorite songs of mine… And it should have been on a Van Halen record.
“That would have been unbelievable if it would’ve been on OU812. But it is what it is; and it’s a song that I will play for the rest of my life.”
Listen to Sammy Hagar’s ‘Eagles Fly’
Sammy Hagar Discusses ‘Eagles Fly’
Van Halen Lineup Changes
Three different singers and two different bassists joined the Van Halen brothers over the years.
